This is one thing that many people do not talk about. Each time we look at our situation, it appears corruption or poverty is the root cause of our problems in Nigeria. It was while I was trying to find out which one has been more devastating between the two that i discovered that the duo are just symptoms of our problem and not the problem. I remembered that when malaria sticks, you will run temperature and have headache, but the duo are not your problem. Malaria is the problem.
This is one thing that many people do not talk about. Each time we look at our situation, it appears corruption or poverty is the root cause of our problems in Nigeria. It was while I was trying to find out which one has been more devastating between the two that i discovered that the duo are just symptoms of our problem and not the problem. I remembered that when malaria sticks, you will run temperature and have headache, but the duo are not your problem. Malaria is the problem.
In the same manner, corruption and poverty stares at us daily, but our problem is lack of patriotism. It is lack of patriotism that makes public officials steal and loot the nations resources and it is this stealing and looting that have stricken us with poverty. Lack of Patriotism cuts across, tribe, religion, age, and status, that is the reason you see the Igbos queue behind and defend a national thief who is an Igbo man, The Hausas and Yorubas do the same when one from their tribe is caught stealing the nations resources. It is not only with the leaders, but the followers. Patriotic followers can check the excesses of unpatriotic leaders, but in the Nigerian situation, the followers even lack patriotism more that the leaders
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It is lack of patriotism that will make an individual embezzle funds meant to provide health facilities for 170 million Nigerians. It is lack of patriotism that makes an individual to embezzle billions of naira meant for the construction of Federal and state roads. It is lack of patriotism that makes an individual embezzle billions meant to improve our aviation industry and allow Nigerians fly in rickety aircraft from sub-standard airports waiting for death. It is lack of patriotism that makes an individual or groups to spend huge sums of money that can be used to better the lives of Nigerians to sponsor terrorist and militants to kill and make life uncomfortable for Nigerians. It is lack of patriotism that makes a public officer to embezzle billions meant to improve the education sector and opt to sending his/her immediate family members abroad to study, where someone else efficiently utilized same money to build the sector. It is lack of patriotism that makes an individual embezzle billions of dollars meant to improve power supply, leaving millions of Nigerians in perpetual darkness. It is lack of patriotism that makes an average Nigerian watch with indifference and docility while a few embezzle the national resources and wreck the country. Need I say more?
Each day, I stare at my four months old baby and all I dream for him is a better, prosperous and successful future. I will make myself uncomfortable and put more effort to work to provide all he will need to live a better life than I am doing and to achieve more than I am doing. I can’t imagine stabbing him to death, even if I become possessed with the worst evil spirit. That is what love for a son can do. Till we love Nigeria sincerely and show loyalty to her, the end to our problems will never be in sight.
When your responsibilities stares at you and you want to shy away from them, you choose to beat around the bush and keep yourself busy with things that are not necessary. The National Conference is one of the things that we have chosen to do to shy away from our responsibilities. Apart from the fact that the national conference smears us as insincere, it also portrays us as unserious towards finding solutions to our problems. Nigerians elected 360 members of the House of Representatives and 109 senators, but at this point, we chose to abandon them and set up another similar representative that will cost us more than it takes to maintain the national Assembly for three months. If we are sincere, these delegates to the national conference and all believers of the national conference should have come to tell the NASS members that they do not serve any purpose or actually represent Nigerians and that they were not elected by Nigerians because that is what acceptance to be a delegate at the national conference or a supporter of same means. If you have a piece of wood to cook, do you go and but another?
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Least I bore you, it is important to let you know that the National conference will not bring a solution to Nigerian problems, but possibly inflict more harm by dividing Nigeria the more along ethnic, religious and tribal lines. If we are smart, we should have asked ourselves this simple question; among the developed and successful nations, how many of them held a national conference that sparked development, success or prosperity? Initially, the there were allegations that presidencies’ calculation is that the convening of the national conference will give president Jonathan an edge over other candidates in the 2015 presidential election. It is believed that resolutions at the conference will foster his personal ambition by endearing him once again to Nigerians after making Nigerians feel he listens to them, but I can bet you that all these have failed already.
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE
1. Many issues that will be discussed at the conference and the way they will be discussed will cause more disaffection among Nigerians than we have today.
2. Nigeria will remain divided the more along ethnic, religious and tribal lines as a result of the conference
3. President Jonathan will make more enemies than he has at the end of the conference and will drastically reduce his chances of coming back in 2015
4. Eye brows will be raised, nerves will be charges and tension will be high along the conference and at the end
5. More money will be secretly disbursed by the presidency, apart from the #7 billion doled out, to lobby delegates and buy their opinion, when the danger signals become glaring.
6. Some ethnic nationalities will stage a walk out mid way to the conference.
7. There will be scarcely a ratified memorandum at the end of the conference as many groups within the conference will express loss of confidence in the chairman and other executive officers leading to more than one report at the end of the conference
8. The National Assembly will hide under the guises that the conference was marred by disagreement and fractionalization to throw the various memorandum to the waste basket.
9. The memorandum or report from the conference will go the way of the reports of Oputa panel, Oransanya report, Ribadu report and co, but the whole thing will be most similar to the Ribadu Report.
Keep this in your archives and let us talk again after three months on these issues. My Igbo people use to say "If we start narrating the reason we quarreled, we will see more reason to quarrel again". Talk is cheap. Our twin symptoms are staring at us, CORRUPTION AND POVERTY FROM THE STRIKE OF UNPATRIOTISM.
Com Jasper Ikedi Azuatalam
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of SaharaReporters
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